So, the good news for me is that he did and I didn't have to feel weirdly lazy about putting off posting for another day.
Do you have any jobs that you have lost the ability to do? Should I be worried I don't know how to turn on my TV?
Knitting a ranch house |
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This evening I sat down at my computer and hoped that my partner had uploaded my new photos onto the computer. It's not that I don't know how to do it myself, it's that it's one of those tasks that is "his job" and I have somehow lost the will or inclination to do. This goes both ways. One of my jobs is food preparation. I came home once and he was so proud that he had managed to make himself some trail mix out of the baking ingredients he found in the cupboard for a snack at no point realizing that we had trail mix on the counter. I swear we are both relatively smart people. I imagine this is part of the slow progression to being an 80 year old who doesn't know how to use the phone. Concerning, but perhaps also beautifully dysfunctional. So, the good news for me is that he did and I didn't have to feel weirdly lazy about putting off posting for another day. This is the Alma blouse from Sewaholic Patterns. I made this blouse a few months ago out of some leftover fabric I made a Cambie dress out of. I made it as a mulsin to test out the pattern and then forgot about it in my closet. I was able to make a size 8 without any alterations with a really great fit. I was able to pull this over my head so I skipped inserting a zipper. The tie belt pulls the waist that little bit extra but can be loosened after big meals. I grabbed this out of the closet the other day and realized that I really love this blouse. The fabric is beautiful but I also really like the fit and comfort of this top. It feels perfect for getting a little more pulled together after a day at the beach. In a cotton voile it's perfect for summer. This is now on my to-sew-again list.
Do you have any jobs that you have lost the ability to do? Should I be worried I don't know how to turn on my TV?
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We finally moved! More importantly, we finally unpacked all our stuff and life is back to normal. I have never been a person who is super into home decor or interior design. I've always appreciated it done well and I love a good hipster restaurant but it's not something I've spent my time on. I experienced a sudden change when we bought our apartment though. I realized that we could actually do whatever we wanted to the place. I became a Pinterest person. I searched craigslist every morning before work and I begged my partner to go to mid century modern consignment stores with me. I watched two seasons of Mad Men with intensity. During one intense scene where Don Draper was yelling at someone, my partner looked at me and said "you're looking at the lamps aren't you?" We are about 80% there in terms of getting our place all finished and imagine that we will be for a good few years. We are now in the stage of doing the little things. Replacing some things, hanging art, etc. Also, making pillow covers for our couch pillows. I went to Spool of Thread and we went through their great selection of quilting cotton to find a nice match. We settled on this mustard and teal geometric print to go with the colours we already had in the room. Looking at the pictures they could maybe be more saturated but I'm happy with our selection. There is not much to say about the construction of these pillows. I bought a metre of fabric and cut it in half for two pillows. I then folded it in half, added a zipper, and then sewed up the side seams. I was originally going to make an envelope style pillow (is that a thing?) where there is just an overlap of fabric in the back you can put the pillow in and out of but I didn't think I had enough fabric. I had these zippers in my stash from a buy a whole bunch of zippers for a dollar sale so this worked. I often see on blogs that the throw pillows look like they have been karate chopped down the centre. Why is this? They look poofier I guess. This is a mystery to me. Here is an obligatory shot. I "staged" our living room for these photos. In other words, I lint rolled the couch for five minutes and moved the blanket and place mats we use to watch TV while we eat dinner. Here is what it usually looks like, but with more cat hair.
Sewing has slowed to a stop while we impatiently wait to move. We knew we were moving mid January but our move in date is at the end of March. This has basically resulted in our house being covered in boxes for 2 and a half months while we slowly sell our Ikea furniture on Craigslist. This has made sewing almost impossible as it requires some clear table space at least to cut everything out. This makes for a very boring blog. I thought of a sneaky solution though. I'll use this opportunity to post things I made before I started blogging. It's nice to have a record of them and will keep me in the habit of posting regularly. I have been sewing since I was a kid, mostly Hallowe'en costumes and altering clothing to make it slutty when I was 20 until a few years ago when I bought myself a new machine. I decided I would really try and sew garments. I had a lot of "learning experiences" before having the most success using indie patterns and blog tutorials that hold your hand through every single step. Anything I still have and wear is from the past year. I used the Tiramisu pattern from Sewing Cake. This is the only pattern I have tried from this company and I believe it was their first. There was a bit of errata which was corrected with a an extra page that you had to trace onto the pattern to correct. I was super impressed with the unique sizing system. It has you trace different sizes depending on your waist, upper bust and cup size. I followed this to a T and ended up with a dress that was way too big in the bodice the first time. This was my second dress and I cut a 32 C which is not my size at all but I find the fit much better. This might also be my preference for negative ease in jersey knit but it did dampen my excitement for the system. When I look at photos of this dress I notice a few successes and a few "lessons." Lessons:
Successes:
Since I started blogging, I have been spending a lot more time looking at pictures of myself and really assessing how clothes look on me. I am pretty critical of my Christmas weight and my sever hair cut which I am hot and cold on. But I suppose hair can grow and cheese can be forgone for a bit. Overall, I love this dress and wear it any time I have to look nice but want to feel like I'm in pajamas...secret pajamas. You'll have to excuse me. I have only a quick post today on a very basic and very boring black t-shirt. I have been very distracted by the fact that I just bought an apartment. This has converted me from a reasonable person to a person who is obsessed with teak furniture and succulents. Seriously, I dream of succulents. I had a dream of making a hemlock tee, a free pattern from Grainline Studio. It's not my usual clothing silhouette but I thought that for a free pattern, I could experiment. It wouldn't be flattering on me, but fashion isn't always about flattery and I thought I could embrace my inner hipster and wear it with my coloured skinny jeans and a toque and just wear it to work. I didn't have enough fabric. So I had to look at another pattern. I grabbed the Briar pattern and used short sleeves and modified the hem to a straight hem instead of a mullet hem to save on fabric. Also I probably have enough mullet shirts at this point. I think this took my two hours from start to finish. It's nothing special but the soft drapey fabric makes it comfortable and very versatile. I'm sure it will be a basic I wear with all my crazy clothes (which outnumber reasonable clothes in my closet by ALOT). One lesson to take away is that I should increase the amount I stretch fabric on the neckline at the centre front, I find I tend to get rippling at that point. Current resolution: Sew something other than knit shirts...and acquire as many succulents as possible.
EDIT: to share in my insanity, you can find all the cacti and teak you could ever want here. Another piece of fabric from the Our Social Fabric Sale I went to a few months ago. I grabbed this mustard piece of terry cloth thinking that it might be a horrible idea. It had a number of brown stains on it and it smelled musty. I also associate terry cloth with Juicy Couture track suits which are not my scene. I still had space in my bag though so it wouldn't cost me any extra so I went for it. I threw it in the wash and without any special treatment all of the stains disappeared along with the musty smell. If this hadn't worked, I would have run it through again after soaking it in oxyclean, which usually does the trick. I started dreaming of a gloriously '70s inspired cowl neck top. I used the Renfrew pattern from Sewaholic Patterns. I love this independent pattern company for many reasons:
I have made a number of variations of this top in the past year. I love it. It's so easy to sew and with the different sleeve lengths and neck styles it's adaptable to any season. I am obsessed with the cowl neck version but have never successfully made it due to being short on fabric. This top is no exception. I knew that I was short on fabric so I cut out all other pieces first. Even cutting 3/4 length sleeves instead of long sleeves, I didn't have enough for a nice big cowl. I was able to make it work by cutting cowl pieces that were half as tall and while it's not as cosy or exaggerated looking, I think it works. I made my usual size for this pattern but I probably could have gone up one size to accommodate for the thickness of the fabric. You can see a few pull lines around the chest and shoulders but they eased up with wear throughout the day. I'm really pleased with how this turned out and as weird as terry cloth is, I think I will wear this a lot. It's just really cosy and I love the colour. I leave you with a survey, because it's an option on Weebly, and I can: I asked my partner if the print of this shirt was a bit "mature." He didn't understand what I meant, and I said "you know, like something a saucy 40 year old would wear." He gave some vague supportive comments. Later that day I saw my sister and she said, "it looks like something a secretary would wear, like a cougar." Nice... Well, I got this fabric in a big Our Social Fabric Sale in a huge bag for $25 so I'm calling this shirt $1. Plus, I was on a roll with the Briar pattern so I just went with it. I made a Medium with the neckline band. No alterations. It sewed up really quickly and easily. The shoulders were reinforced with clear elastic. I then decided that it would be good to take some photos outside of my apartment. We went in search of a good spot while doing some errands. My partner suggested this spot over the skytrain because you can see the city in the background. So, it looks kind of cougary, but I think the silhouette is young and trendy. I will wear it even though I wouldn't actively go out and purchase this fabric for real money. I wonder if this is normal, that I would sew and wear something solely because it is cheap. Why should the cost make a difference? No one else knows how much my shirt cost. They just see a woman standing outside in a busy public transit area in the freezing rain posing for a photo in an obnoxiously printed shirt.
A couple detail shots of the sweet twin needle action done for the hems with my standard sewing machine. My amazing sister gave me a couple of great patterns for my birthday this year. One was the Briar Pattern by Megan Nielsen. It's a simple pattern with only a few pieces. It is probably easy to draft something like this yourself but I appreciate the work being done for me. More importantly, I value the amount of hand-holding that a lot of independent pattern companies do when it comes to instructions for construction. I love the clear step-by-step instructions, suggestions for variations and the tutorials that are found online to accompany the patterns. The Briar is no exception. Inspired by a post from the Megan Neilsen Design Diary blog, I saw some sequined sweater knit next to the cutting table at the fabric store and grabbed it on impulse to try this pattern out as a sweater. I had never sewn a sweater knit before. I was expecting it to be harder to cut and sew on a machine. My rotary cutter didn't like the sequins but I switched to scissors and had no problems. My machine was able to handle the fabric without any problems with a zig zag stitch and no walking foot (as I don't have one). The only down side is that there are tiny sequins all over my dining room table FOREVER. I usually cut a size Medium for the briar but sized up to a Large for the sweater knit to wear over shirts and I am quite happy with the fit. I chose the neckline band instead of the binding as I am comfortable with a band and have only tried the binding once with mixed results.
Overall, I'm really happy with this sweater. It satisfies my desire for over the top tackiness that I am drawn to - in this case sequins for everyday wear. My partner is graciously taking photos for me for this blog but is learning in the process so I have decided to add out-takes because there are many. Here's the first one: The title of this blog should be changed to "All leggings all the time." I do make other garments, I swear. I do find though, that in the process of getting a pattern to a point where I have worked out all the fitting issues I have already had a couple attempts at it. At that point, I'm usually excited to actually use it a couple times to make something really wearable. This results in spurts of making one thing a few times before moving on. I do make muslins but a bed sheet won't do for leggings. I was at the point where I felt I had sorted out all my fitting issues and had a solid pattern to work from. I had visions of making a really cool pair of leather-looking leggings that I could wear with tunics and ankle boots. I bought a metre and a half of fake leather stretch fabric. I thought about sizing the pattern up to account for differences in stretch but the fabric did not seem that different. I was wrong. A little bit of stretch difference meant I felt like a sausage in the leggings. I was bummed and over leggings. I went to another Our Social Fabric Sale last weekend and ended up with a meter of stretchy stripey fabric with the same amount of stretch as my failed leggings. I added 1/2" width to my pattern and thought I'd give the pattern one more go before putting it away for awhile. They were better but still too tight to ever really want to wear them. Some good things about my sister:
Doesn't the fabric look cool and edgy? sigh.. Oh well. They look awesome on my sister. There are some "frown lines" on the front, not sure how to get rid of those. My sisters report:Here are some photos! Both technically fit at almost every point of
the body; however, there is space for some extra package in both of the crotch areas. The stripy ones are so comfortable that I don't care; the pleather ones are snug in all the other parts, so it's weirdly off-putting. Anyways, thanks for the leggings :) I'm gunna rock them H CORE. I like that my sister used semi colons in the same message as the word "gunna." So all-in-all, a success. I still had more athletic fabric and I felt like the high waisted leggings while good for wearing while biking looked super nerdy when I was at yoga. I thought a lower rise and a wider waistband would look a little more like "lulu" style leggings. I altered my existing pattern by lowering the front and back rise by 4". I then measured the new "waistline" on my body where the waistband would attach. I wanted a 2" waistband so I drafted a rectangle that was 4 and 1/4" wide and my new measurement minus 2" long. I sewed my leggings the same way until I got to attaching the waistband. I stitched the ends of the waistband together to make a loop and then I folded the waistband in half lenghtwise with right sides out. I attached this to the waist like I would the neckband on a Renfrew t-shirt. After trying them on they sat very low and kept pulling down lower. I solved this by unpicking a bit of the waistband and feeding some elastic through. Not as normal looking as I expected but I still wore them to yoga. The technique was effective but after wearing both styles I find the waistband at the natural waistline a lot more comfortable. I tend to just wear a long top/look like a fool and be OK with it.
When I was 19 I was convinced that leggings were a passing trend. I thought that they were completely unflattering on people with my body type and didn't make sense under skirts and dresses. Leggings were definitely NOT pants. Leggings were only acceptable when exercising or when worn by 6 year-olds. Fast forward ten years and I own A LOT of leggings. I wear them under skirts and dresses constantly. I wear them to yoga, biking, lounging around the house, skiing...everywhere. I blame it partially on how much I hate wearing pants with proper waistbands and partially on the fact that I live in Vancouver, a city so saturated with yoga and athletic culture that leggings have become part of Vancouver "fashion." I still don't think they are flattering and I still don't think they are pants, but that doesn't seem to stop me. A few months ago, I went to a fabric sale hosted by Our Social Fabric, a textile recycling initiative. OSF recycles fabric from local manufacturers and the movie industry that would otherwise be going to waste. The sale was an amazing deal. I think I left with two large bags stuffed full for under $40. Fabric was sold off the bolt for $2/m. Of course, being Vancouver, all of our clothing manufacturers are all athletic and outdoor wear. I came home with more technical fabric then I knew what to do with. I decided I could always use more leggings. I followed this tutorial from One Little Minute. I found it excellent. It really walks you through the whole process from start to finish with clear explanations and diagrams. I started with my first draft of the pattern and got these blue beauties: Looks good when I stand up perfectly straight...which is never. I was very pleased, except when I bent forward they did this: Not so much. I decided with no real reason to justify my decision that making the "J" shape in the front rise of the pattern deeper would solve this problem. The next day I made this olive pair: Same problem, maybe less so? I looked through this Pender Island thrift store find for advice. On altering pants it gave alternate instructions for measuring the front rise. It instructs you to measure it in sitting instead of standing. This gave me a measurement two inches shorter than the previous method. I altered the pattern to lower the waist line by this amount. The red lines below. This alteration resulted in this well-fitting but obscenely bright pair. Problem solved. Now I have a go to pattern for when I need leggings again in five years...or next week.
Anyone know how to solve visible stitches with stretch knits, short of buying a serger? I am using a zig zag stitch and seem to always get the following issue: |
AboutA blog to document my attempts to create a well-fitting wardrobe for myself and my family through sewing and knitting. Archives
August 2018
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